Fieldfisher celebrates Employee Ownership Day 2018

Fieldfisher celebrates EO Day 2018 – the day employee-owned companies show why their way of doing business should be a mainstay of the UK economy not just "the topic of the moment"

On EO Day 2018, Fieldfisher joins with the employee ownership sector, a sector that already contributes £30bn to the UK economy, to celebrate the economic benefits and positive impacts the sector has on the UK economy and to encourage the continued growth of the sector.

One of many business owners speaking to Fieldfisher this week about "EO" called it "the topic of the moment". It's easy to understand why, with recent Press articles, including in the Times and Evening Standard, the launch by 20+ leading business organisations of a report evidencing the "Ownership Dividend" and recent publicity including the live completion on breakfast TV of Riverford Organic's move to employee ownership.

Fieldfisher's EO story over the last year shows that the employee ownership business model is taking hold in the UK and internationally as a mainstay among policy-makers and in academe and in sectors such as architecture and public service mutuals. Employee ownership is not just the topic of the moment it is here to stay.

This is illustrated by a brief ABC of employee ownership…

A is for Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, number 4 in the AJ 100 and winner of the AJ100 Awards Practice of the Year. The conversion of this world renowned firm of architects has acted as a catalyst to encourage many other architects to convert to employee ownership.

B is for BB Partnership Limited, another firm of architects, which is celebrating a successful year as an employee-owned business. Director, Julian Williams, said at the time of their conversion to employee ownership "Employee trust ownership is the way that most architects practices will one day be owned". He was one of a number of Fieldfisher clients interviewed for a recent AJ article, "Power to the people: the rise of the employee-owned practice", which has also boosted awareness and take-up of EO among architects.

C is forCambridge Design Partnership Limited, a technology and product design company which completed its conversion to employee ownership yesterday on the eve of EO Day 2018. This company shares with Riverford Organics the distinction of announcing its plans to move to EO ahead of legal completion, a move that shows the confidence those adopting EO have in this business model.

Follow EO Day 2018 activity on Twitter by searching for #EODay

Read more about employee ownership in the Fieldfisher materials below.